


Glow

by EgregiousDerp



Series: The Tearing of the Veil [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (more tags inside fic notes.), Also wrecking Chirrut’s makeup, Awkward Pining: (ultimate Good Ending), Baze is nervous and hasn’t slept in days probably, Chirrut Îmwe: Horny on Main, Hurricane Honeymoon, M/M, Oh Gee we’re trapped in a storm bunker and there’s One bed, Oh. Uh. But. Explicit Switching., Solid Banter and Borking my Dudes, and also we just got married., how could this possibly turn out?, if that’s sweetens the deal for anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 16:22:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14453115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgregiousDerp/pseuds/EgregiousDerp
Summary: ”Baze Malbus, we are in the middle of adrought!”Baze gestures to the flood-proofed door with a snort, realizes Chirrut’s hands are already in his robes. He resettles his hand appropriately, squeezes, gratified when Chirrut’s eyes lid slightly.“And I have wanted you since we were fourteen.” Chirrut finishes in a sigh.Baze frowns”Fifteen.””I haven’t waited this long-“ he breaks off, “Fif-? NO.”





	Glow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [naniiebim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naniiebim/gifts).



> A sequel-fic to the artwork of the same name by Naniiebim, posted with oversight and permission of the artist.
> 
> Art is here!
> 
> http://naniiebimworks.tumblr.com/post/172564233363/naniiebimworks-glow
> 
> (Note: if I ever make a piece based on a piece of yours and don’t send it to you first at the least to make sure it’s okay for me to do so, call me on it. It’s my intention to make sure people are okay with my based-work beforehand. Especially works that take turns I wasn’t expecting—which this one did.)
> 
> Many thanks, therefore, to Nan who made the art and said the weird direction this follow-up went in was still alright.
> 
> And also to Rebel (Rebel-Atar) and Sara (Magikfanfic) for initial readthroughs and tone-testing on some of the more potentially delicate subjects of the fic, which are listed in the notes for the end of the fic so as not to give away potential spoilers.

Chirrut Îmwe is listening to the rain.

Howling wind wails around stone spattering the chamber’s walls, so, not for the first time, Baze remembers this structure was built to last only a week.

Rain has come during the wedding ceremonies before of course. And new couples have died beneath the fallen stones of less than sturdy marriage chambers in weather more permissive than this.

Baze knows this.

He also knows all is as the Force wills it. 

Though that is a superficial calm to a very deep anxiety.

(A week, yes, but certainly people have seen Chirrut in action... He has to _hope_ -)

A puff of moist air hits his face from some crack in the wall. Baze prays hard for just a moment, breath held tight in his chest—a little _too_ tight, thanks to the sheathe that was supposed to hold his heat in, supposed to give him more of a guardian’s shape when he was tugged and laced and combed into place that morning.

He’s too warm now, bundled up haphazardly where Chirrut helped him back into his robes and veils. Baze is sweating, sitting on their bed wishing he at _least_ wasn’t sweating when so much effort was put in to make him look attractive for just one day.

It had to be a rainy one though. Of course it did. Jedhan rites attached to the old cycles of death and rebirth and all, but he can still _feel_ his hair curling, bristling up like it’s some wild animal.

Normally he’s proud of it, his hair. It’s a sign he is one of the desert people in a sea of close-cropped heads. Penitents with shaggy heads and worn, sandy robes come and seek him out, clasping his hands in theirs—a sand Jedhan! A guardian!

He is one of only two Sand Jedhan Guardians he has seen. The other is High Master Yi, who has shaven her head to the ears, and wears the long scholar’s topknot over—a compromise between heritage and devotion.

Baze has not compromised. He doesn’t consider himself a scholar.

Most Jedhan days are dry, and Baze’s hair hangs in neat oiled waves, or a single long, braided queue down his back.

But the slightest snap of moisture, the glistening mass of Baze’s hair becomes a turbulent, swelling sea, and for his marriage _Chirrut_ had apparently put in the request that it be allowed to hang freely, because Baze’s attendants wouldn’t hear of binding it in the two traditional marriage braids, but combed and oiled and smoothed it almost beyond recognition, leaving it promiscuously loose, past his waist, binding the top in a neat bun held by a jade pin, which is the only thing, really, that keeps his hair from turning into a completely untamable mess.

He’s given up on fighting it at this point. Resigned to being unkempt and unruly.

Baze wonders if the other newlyweds are huddled together in their beds, kept from their belongings and duties. Nothing to do but wait and pray and look at each other and try to be beautiful.

And sleep, he supposes. Since none of them are married to Chirrut, who he would have thought would have resorted to handstands and Zama-Shiwo movements and running in place long ago because if there’s anything Baze knows it’s that trying to hold onto Chirrut is like trying to hold onto the wind, and trying to stop Chirrut was like trying to keep the sand from finding its way into your clothes.

In that regard he’s surprised it’s only been the once so far, with Chirrut looking at him like he was a Life Day present, all wide, delighted eyes and pawing hands and his mouth- mumbling things, _doing_ things that had led Baze to believe he was drunk because he felt like an imposter in the wedding finery with his hair half-up and the cold seeping into him. He’d been a little drunk himself at the time and it had been good. _Shockingly_ good to have Chirrut there, whispering, his fingers deep, and his eyes brimming with unstinting happiness.

He’s sore enough, certainly, he thinks, now that the haze of the ceremonial euphoriants has worn off. Sore and worried and sweating, with his hair curling in on itself in the snap of humidity, reminded with every breath that he’s the wrong shape, that they could _die_ because some acolyte on mason duty laid a single stone in the wrong place and the wind changed. 

Baze sits, with his knees under him. His scalp prickles. He sweats.

He knows Chirrut snatched a jug of spiced Chav off a table when the sky broke and lightning lashed at the spire of the temple.

He knows his husband grabbed another armful of pastries and bruised blossoms of rainbloom while Baze was busy collecting their staves and trying to tug him to safety before the crowd of pilgrims turned ugly in their terror, running for their shelters in the city even as Baze grabbed Chirrut by the arm, staves in hand, _running_ at the first blast of hot desert wind the looming thunderhead brought, and then the wave of moist air trapped beneath it. Chirrut trailing behind him, laughing, arms holding his robes out in front of him like a basket, full of food.

Instinct.

Something beyond fear, and simply into awareness.

Get Chirrut. _Get out._

Warm air whistles through the cracks of the door. Desert wind. It could bring tornadoes, Baze knows, knows the historical scars where Nijedha’s been struck before by nature, the lines of filled-in new buildings next to centuries-old shops. The eagerness of space to expand in a city that had built upon itself for millennia, newness like a scar on the beautiful face of Baze’s home city.

His stomach twists and he breathes, looks at Chirrut with his hands against their sealed-in door. Days they could be in here...

He can’t think of that right now.

Chirrut’s laughter had infuriated him, even, in his panic. Now that they’re here, he has to admit grabbing food was probably the right call. There’s a tiny waste pod and a basin full of water with a towel. Six sets of clean linen underrobes between the two of them. This was meant to be a place to visit, not a shelter against disaster. Without Chirrut there would be no food here. A single basin of water to drink.

Chirrut saw to it that they would have plenty. Would have luxuries, even, in their waiting.

Baze’s stomach flutters slightly.

The marriage crown hasn’t wilted around Chirrut’s brow. It glistens, seems to glow, makes his upturned face and his dark eyes shine and glitter, corners highlighted with a pointed smudge of red harvested from the shells of the Hong beetles that live in the kyber caves. It’s the same dye used to color the translucent veils of death that the Guardians of the Whills wear flashing beneath their robes. A strange omen for a wedding.

The intoxicants should be well out of Baze’s system. Perhaps are not for the crown to look so beautiful, for _Chirrut_ to look so achingly lovely with the corners of his eyelids, the apples of his cheeks, and the inner edges of his lips pointing down his chin in a broad stripe painted with beetle red like a streak of blood. Highlighting good features, Baze thinks.

...They’re all good features.

Baze rubs his eyes.

”Kyber water?”

He doesn’t need preludes for conversations with Chirrut. At least not much of one, because Chirrut turns and grasps his meaning immediately when he waves to the crown still in his hair.

Chirrut grins.

”If you’re looking for some to drink-“

”I am not.”

Chirrut’s grin widens. Not for the first time Baze reflects that he’s ridiculously handsome. Remembers with a jolt of shock that that handsome man now belongs exclusively to him. 

He wonders if Chirrut regrets that yet. Probably not. Chirrut doesn’t seem to regret much of anything.

He waves a hand at Chirrut, faltering from the emotional misstep.

”You’re- Glowing.”

As if Chirrut is ever less than radiant.

Anxiety churns in Baze’s belly, reflecting that they are very alone. With certain expectations. 

He hadn’t had any instructions for the hinting attendants that had dressed Chirrut, hounded by them into blurting that Chirrut knew what looked good on him better than Baze did, and to do whatever he wanted. Perhaps they’d meant to impart some other advice and he’d been too nervous to comprehend. Perhaps he’d misread. Too late to know now.

He hadn’t expected Chirrut to arrive in makeup, crowned with hallucinatory blooms, dark overrobe trailing over his white train. Baze couldn’t deny it looked good. Somehow more fierce and intimidating than Chirrut was normally, but good in a way that made his stomach drop. Chirrut staring at him with wide, delighted eyes, mouthing _you look amazing_ at him over the goblets before them, as if his white-swaddled form with the veil was anything compared to Chirrut.

Meaning it, too, because Chirrut was sincere in everything he spoke to Baze, even if it scared him.

Baze had stared at their joined hands instead, and blinked hard as the Master over them both began to chant the litany of unity, laying red silk over their hands and beginning to tie them together.

He’d thought his heart would pound out of his chest. That he might faint. Throw up. Do something terrible and unforgivable if he looked up from their clasped hands, from the red silk cord and the words binding them, trembling because it was happening. Really happening. He was getting married. To Chirrut.

Chirrut’s dark eyes flick upwards like he can see the droplets. He pulls the crown down and looks at it. Eyes their glowing staves in the corner, casting the rest of the room in dim white light.

”They must allow them to drink from the same cup we do.” 

There’s probably a spiritual metaphor there that Baze would be able to focus on if his chest didn’t feel so tight, if he didn’t want Chirrut so desperately away from that door they’ve already stuffed one of the blankets under when a shocking pool of water tried to make its way through. The thirsty Jedhan soil between the makeshift tiles has already reclaimed it, but the blanket’s still crammed there and Chirrut is still there, dressed in all his finery, crowned with the fast flowers of spring, which bloom and die so quickly.

Baze can’t help but feel with so much overwhelming good happening, with disaster already trying to strike, something _terrible_ is absolutely imminent.

”Get away from there.” Baze whispers, hoarse. His voice falters, almost lost to the wind, the spatter of hard rain, reaching for him. “ _Please._ Chirrut.” 

Chirrut shrugs, crossing back to him easily, and Baze buries his face in his slipping robes in irrational relief.

Even a wedding cannot keep Chirrut’s clothes from opening, from only caressing him more than clinging to him as they are meant to, cloth loose and roving. It’s been the impression Baze has had of him all through their teenaged years, into the shakey first steps of their adulthood: Chirrut Îmwe, so wild even his clothes couldn’t hold him, and even Baze could only dull the wildest of his urges. 

The temple troublemaker.

 _His_ , with a crown of flowers, beaded with rain, eyelashes wet with it. _His_ troublemaker.

Baze curls his fingers in the incense-reeking mess of cloth, buries his face in it, with the layers warm from Chirrut’s skin. He prays to the Force with a thrill of foreboding that they don’t end up sick of each other after a few days. As anyone could. Afraid.

Chirrut just grins down at him as he takes his waist, the billows of white and the dark over, denoting Chirrut’s guardianship. 

There were formal options of preparation for a wedding ceremony between two male-identified sentients in the Jedhan custom. Baze has been aching most of the day.

Chirrut removed that preparation when he’d stolen him away from the ceremonies, before the storm, going down on him, putting fingers where kyber once sat. 

Baze still aches.

He wonders if Chirrut aches too, with a pang of mercy. He shouldn’t. The feast is interrupted but the ceremony is done. He should be comfortable.

Groping one-handed beneath Chirrut’s robes doesn’t stop Chirrut’s grin. If anything, it gets wider. Baze pauses when there’s nothing but warm skin beneath his fingers. No knob of warm stone. Just flesh. Chirrut.

Chirrut didn’t. Didn’t prepare himself in that way.

Baze’s mind skips.

”Don’t look like that. I thought you might like the honor.” Chirrut says, probably reading his expression. He pauses, bemusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “You can keep touching as much as you like though. Husband.”

He pulls Baze’s face into his hands, tipping it up, carding his fingers through the mess of Baze’s long hair. His grin is so fond, so free of any self-consciousness Baze can’t help but second-guess his own.

He doesn’t know what to think. Feels stupid for not asking, for not plotting out the logistics of this night before it was here. Before they were tied together, vowed, veiled, sealed together. He should have- should have-

His words stutter.

”You- Didn’t-“

”I didn’t give to some lump of rock simply because it’s traditional, no. No, Baze.” Chirrut pauses, reproachful before adding, “And you shouldn’t have. I could see you squirming every time you had to sit down all day. It’s stupid. I couldn’t wait to get it out of you.”

There’s chiding there, but also concern.

Baze’s face heats.

say-?

He shuts his eyes.

 _Temple Bones_ , he knows _exactly_ what Chirrut must have said.

”Did you lie to the Masters?”

”My preferences are between me and my husband. It’s not a lie if it’s not their business.”

Baze drops his head against Chirrut’s chest, ears burning.

Chirrut laughs.

”Why that face?” He tries to turn Baze upwards by the ears. “Baze-“

He stops. His smile falters.

”...Oh Force, you told them we’d been impure, didn’t you?” 

Baze hides his hot face in the curve of Chirrut’s chest while his husband groans.

” _Baze_ -“

”We _were_.” Baze mutters, belligerent, “We were impure in all ways but one, Chirrut-“

”It hasn’t rained in _two years_ , Baze-!” Chirrut cuts himself off with a noise and plucks at his dark overrobe, “Is _that_ why your marriage shawl’s different from mine?”

Baze hides his face against Chirrut’s chest, furiously cursing in his heart. His silence doesn’t mean there won’t be an argument. A lecture. Baze saying nothing hasn’t stopped Chirrut before.

Sure enough:

” _Baze Malbus_ we were engaged for two and a half years, and you refused the ceremony once already because six months was too soon!”

”It _was_ too soon.” Baze grumbles into Chirrut’s chest.

Chirrut yanks his hair hard enough that Baze makes a noise and shoves him like they’re boys again.

”I asked to be forgiven of my actions of impurity, and the Masters were gracious-“ Baze starts.

”Of course they were gracious!” Chirrut winds his hand around a long strand of hair, digging an accusatory finger into the side of Baze’s cheek, “There’s nothing in their power to forgive you for having your cock sucked by your betrothed before your staff was properly tipped-“

” _Chirrut-_ ”

”Baze Malbus, we are in the middle of a _drought_!”

Baze gestures to the flood-proofed door with a snort, realizes Chirrut’s hands are already in his robes. He resettles his hand appropriately, squeezes, gratified when Chirrut’s eyes lid slightly.

”And I have _wanted you_ since we were fourteen.” Chirrut finishes in a sigh.

Baze frowns.

”Fifteen.”

”I haven’t waited this long-“ he breaks off, “Fif-? _No_.”

”Fifteen.” Baze insists. Chirrut was Fifteen when he walked in on him naked under his blankets, humping at his bedding. It couldn’t have been earlier than that even at the earliest.

He hadn’t known what to make of it at the time. It had been a strange feeling. They’d shared the room with so many other boys a private moment of inchastity was almost impossible. Opportune. For a long time Baze thought Chirrut had maybe even done it solely to unnerve him. Propped on his elbow, back arched, lost to pleasure...

What else was he _supposed_ to make of Chirrut’s steady eye contact, his refusal to _stop_ when someone walked in on him?

He was so... _brazen_. Rebellious. He’d done so many things for effect...

Baze had apologized and excused himself as immediately as the realization of what was actually happening in front of him sank in. He’d even made excuses to ward off the room while Chirrut...finished, when two of their roommates returned early.

What was he _supposed_ to think?

Baze was still gangly and clumsy at Fifteen, not yet into his growth spurt. Chirrut had already been sleek, and trim, and beautiful. Not a single pimple. Not a single blemish. Perfectly willing to leave his roommates in the hall while he masturbated into a warm towel. Not at all the sort of person Baze suspected would be left to merely masturbating for long given how many people stumbled or dropped things around Chirrut with his new height, with his muscles standing out in his arms, His broad shoulders and narrow waist. His light, teasing cheerfulness.

Since it had seemed designed to unnerve him, Baze had stubbornly refused to let it do so. They were _friends_. Chirrut was being particularly obnoxious, but he was _Chirrut._ It was Baze’s job to stop him from being quite so obnoxious so their shared roommates could have their room back for sleeping, or meditation without noticing, ar at the least, without thinking worse of Chirrut.

He couldn’t let Chirrut _win_ at this clear attempt at rebellion.

That was how he’d thought.

It seems impossible that those moments could ever have been about _him._

That Chirrut could have wanted him and not just taken, _convinced_ him with his feeling...

Well.

It feels off.

Baze was devoted, but not made of _Stone_. He was just private about it. He’d noticed other boys a long time before Fifteen.

There were few people who wanted anything to do with him, though.

But even so! He wasn’t the sort of person who put hands on himself about it in a _public room_ where other boys had to live. Or who would have brought anyone back to their rooms, anyway even if there had been a boy who liked him back. He mostly watched from afar. Longed for from afar. Let his stomach sink like a stone watching the people he wanted spiral off and make connections with others so much more easily. Made no moves because that would be unthinkable.

He certainly hadn’t been thinking of _Chirrut_ that way at Fifteen. Chirrut was sexy as a slinkworm, but he was a disaster, and he still picked his nose when he thought people weren’t looking, and besides all that, Chirrut was his _friend_. Since long before. When Baze was an awkward, fat child who hunched into his books to drown out the teasing, and Chirrut was constantly scraped up and losing teeth, and dragging him into adventures like they were both capable of all the same things.

People depended on him to tone Chirrut down, to calm the belligerent edge he got.

He hadn’t _thought_...

Well.

Not for a while, anyway.

Baze sighs.

It wasn’t like he did a great job of resisting Chirrut’s charms when they were older, and Chirrut’s eyes turned up to him rather than down. Years later, after he’d walked in on Chirrut, not on his belly, but in the company of two acolytes and his stomach had sunk like a stone.

He hadn’t even been able to muster a complaint, had just turned away and realized only when he was outside the door, trying to get a rein on his reactions, surprised by how upset he was that he was in _trouble_.

A betrayal of Zama-Shiwo, which was supposed to teach mastery of the body. A betrayal of his heart, which was supposed to recognize Chirrut was off-limits.

Staring at the ground, at his hands back when he’d at last become wide, and broad-shouldered and impossible to hide behind anything but a veil of hair, hunched in and surly about it, sunken down to the floor with his head in his hands, praying to the traitorous Force _No, not him. Please not him. Not Him-_

”I was fourteen, Baze. I remember.” Chirrut insists, blithely talking through Baze’s melancholy, “And it doesn’t matter. You saw how everyone else was dressed-“ Chirrut gasps, a noise of scandalized glee. “They put Torvel in _red_.”

”Because He is Zabrak.” Baze mutters, lips pressed with grateful reverence against the underswell of Chirrut’s breast where his robes are open. Chirrut’s too lost in his own thoughts to notice just yet. He tastes of Kyber water, glitters with mineral dust along his collarbones, his cheeks where Baze hadn’t noticed until now. 

He’s lucky to have him, he thinks, blinking hard. Lucky to have _anyone_ , let alone Chirrut Îmwe, who is beautiful, and his dearest friend for as long as he can remember. Easy. Effortless.

He’d thought he would laugh at thin once, had painted him as cruel in his mind, because he was beautiful, well-liked, and sometimes thoughtless.

Chirrut, of course, didn’t let him.

He didn’t think Chirrut could get more lovely than he had been, half-dressed and stumbling out of the arms of his two companions, with kohl still smudged around his eyes, chasing Baze into the Hall. There had been an unforgettable livid bruise still purpling on his neck, mottled with lipstick—which was also not, strictly speaking, the way of a guardian, those outer adornments, any more than the dark smeared around Chirrut’s eyes making them look darker.

He’d been beautiful, and in that moment Baze had been afraid.

Chirrut Îmwe, with fire in his eyes, voice hoarse, demanding _What the Hell is your problem?_

...It was more of a coral. A rich color, with white accents, Baze thinks absently against Chirrut’s merciful, impossible skin. Not quite Red. Torvel had looked very handsome for his wedding ceremony.

Baze had pined after him too, when he was a younger man. Had said nothing. Had sunk down in misery when it became clear Torvel liked women. Liked women a _lot_. 

Baze had longed for half the boys in their dorm to talk to, honestly. To hold hands with. To kiss. To really connect with. Had stared from behind his hair at many beautiful men in the temple and despaired because they were beautiful and so often uninterested. It was normal.

No one had wanted him or had even really noticed him but Chirrut, who’d left his companions and chased after him-

Chirrut. Who sparkled and shone from the start, far beyond them. Far beyond Baze. 

Chirrut, whose anger had evaporated into immediate concern when Baze had been unable to answer him, silent, humiliated tears starting to flow down his cheeks, because the Force had made such sport of him, at last, to make him Want his best friend, and to make him beautiful, so he could not have him and everyone else could.

Chirrut, whose fury turned to aching gentleness, squeezing his hands, smoothing his hair.

_Baze...?_

Chirrut, who understood what he was getting at even before he had to say. Who, he realized, made his heart ache.

”I’m going to ask him what he and Anj’ Wee were even _doing_ to get dressed in _Red_ -“ Chirrut chuckles.

”Don’t.” Baze mutters.

”Oh I’m sure it’s nothing I didn’t already do,” Chirrut scoffs, waving a hand and laughing.

Baze shakes his head with a sigh. Chirrut had been quite popular with the entire circuit. Had apparently gotten his fair share of disappointed curses from his many intimate friends when he’d left off his carousing ways and began courting Baze in earnest-

(Chirrut’s callused hands squeezing his while the tears kept flowing down his cheeks, whispering, _We’ll figure it out. It’s okay. Baze. We’ll figure out something._ while Baze stared at the lipstick bruise on his neck.)

-Chirrut has never lied about this or even remotely tried to hide it. He isn’t ashamed of it. It’s simply who he is.

It was difficult for him to dedicate to a single partner. To wait. Baze knows this. But he decided, apparently in an instant, and Baze loves him deeply for it. 

He knows he wasn’t easy to court. His own feelings frightened him. His fears. Chirrut’s Wild, and often Public gestures. But he had believed him, had believed if Chirrut said they would figure out what to do that they would. Somehow. They would. They _could._

They have.

So far.

They’re a long way from the loudmouthed brat pulling the hair of the sullen bookworm.

Baze’s fingers quickly unwork the weave of Chirrut’s sash, which is no longer something to feel guilty of.

That sinks in. Makes him pause.

They can do anything they like now.

They belong to one another.

The Wedding Counsel gave him less complicated knotwork, Baze notices, though he’d die before he admits to Chirrut that he might be right.

”You wouldn’t know about Torvel,” Chirrut mutters, fingers curling in Baze’s hair. “ _You_ never went to his parties.”

He sounds bemused. Leading for a question so he can embark on a trail of colorful stories.

Baze has always hated parties. He made sure to stay far away from their dorm when Tillik, Torvel, and Chirrut all decided the night was the time to be loud(er) and (more) provocative and celebrate the excesses of the Force with dozens of their closest friends.

That this might have had something to do with his feelings for Chirrut before he knew what they were is something he doesn’t care to linger on, any more than he cared to linger on the way watching Torvel arm in arm with two, three female acolytes made him feel.

Chirrut always invited him, come to think of it. The thought really sinking in.

Chirrut, in his low-cut tunics that showed off his arms... Chirrut, who’d looked at him when the door opened when they were Fifteen and had bitten his lower lip with such a strange, heated expression, stilling, and then continuing shifting his hand deliberately beneath him, staring at Baze, reading who-knew-what on his face. Embarrassment probably.

(Had he really been thinking of him? Chirrut? So long ago? When Baze was still staring at the crown of Torvel’s horns and wanting to trace the lines of his tattoos on face and shoulders and lips with his fingertips? Had _he_ made Chirrut despair, once?)

Baze kisses Chirrut’s belly with a fierce jolt of relief.

”I always wondered why they ended up together, Anj’ and Torvel-“ Chirrut cuts off with a hiss, drawn very suddenly back to attention, tightening his grip on Baze’s hair. His free hand gropes blindly for his belt. “Aah- Pouch- _Baze_ -“

Baze surfaces with a pop, dumping the contents of Chirrut’s marriage belt on the bed beside him.

Chirrut sighs.

Baze squints, tapping something.

”That?” Chirrut’s eyes hood and he smiles. “I’d be happy to teach you what that is.”

His body is rapidly getting interested against his cheek. That almost makes Baze smile. Eager Chirrut in his open robes, with Baze’s hands under them, on the separate halves of his ass, red mesh of his underthings around his thighs still.

Baze snorts and bumps the odd-shaped rod a little over on the bed with one hand, choosing a vial instead.

”Not that one.” Chirrut mutters into his shoulder. He’s trying to discreetly tug off the mesh sling.

Baze pauses.

”Why?”

He’s more suspicious when Chirrut’s shoulders hunch. Evasive.

”That one you drink.” He threads his hands through Baze’s hair, curls his fingers to cradle his skull. “Not for the first time though, Beloved, I’d like something to look forward to.”

Baze sighs through his nose, not wanting to admit the way his heart lurched at being called something so plain in its intent as ‘beloved’. He selects a different vial, checking for Chirrut’s reaction. Color already burns high on his mineral-highlighted cheeks. 

He throws off the rest of his robes when he catches Baze looking, splays his hands to present himself, equal measures exasperated and surprisingly self-conscious considering they’ve grown up together and gone through quite a lot of fumbling under a lot of respective robes.

Baze realizes abruptly that Chirrut has no idea he already knows what he looks like naked. Even though Chirrut has never been shy about his body and probably half the temple by now could piece together the approximation of his nakedness. 

He’s lovely. Glowing with fine kyber dust and hong red, he realizes, rainbloom pollen streaked on his shoulders, glimpsed pieces coming together in one vision. He’s reddened his nipples too, left a line of red pointing down his belly, so Baze almost wants to laugh.

Baze’s vision blurs. He’s blinking just as suddenly to keep from crying, placing the glowing crown back on his husband’s head, reverent, a hand on his glittering cheek. Now, he thinks, _now_ he is all in white, as the Pilgrims would think is pure, and which Baze can’t help but think is for sorrow. All the sorrow he must have caused Chirrut, who’d loved him first, and must have been rebuffed a hundred unthinking times by Baze’s obliviousness.

Chirrut’s expression visibly softens, face tilting into his hands, mouth parting for his kiss even before it occurs to Baze to give him one, to press his tongue into the gap of Chirrut’s mouth where he’s waiting.

He wonders how many will be dead in the city when the storm passes, how many in its slums will be without power, or clean water as Chirrut pushes him down into their bed, climbing on top of him, kissing him with lips that taste of bitter kyber water and sweet, Smokey Chav, the fruits he must have eaten for breakfast that he would laugh and scoff to know Baze can still smell and taste on him. _Picky_ he’d call him. _Lothcat’s Tongue_.

Chirrut’s pulled the shawls off of him, the veils, has knocked the jade pin out of Baze’s hair, and is peeling Baze out of his thermal sheathe with little tugs. He’s running his tongue along Baze’s belly before he can feel badly about the way it sits, the way it touches the tops of his thighs when he sits instead of dipping flatly into the bowl of his hips like Chirrut’s. But Chirrut’s squeezing the soft sides of it, digging fingers into the flesh that sits along his hips, a groan almost lost to the howling of the wind at Baze’s hands on his neck.

Baze pulls him away, rolls him over, pinning and like that they’re wrestling, laughing and rolling over one another as Chirrut pulls off the rest of Baze’s clothes, kicking delicate fineries off the bed. Baze kisses him, deep, pressing his head into the bedding so Chirrut inhales sharply through his nose, clasps at his shoulders, his back, legs crooked around him.

They’ve done this before. Never fully naked, this rubbing against one another. Allowed now. _Everything_ is allowed.

Baze kisses him, holds onto the heat of his husband’s bare skin. Slow motions, savoring.

Wind howls in the cracks of the doorway and Chirrut shudders, fingers curled into Baze’s shoulderblades as they meet again in a kiss. Slow. Deep.

Baze wonders idly how many of the other brides and grooms are tangled like this, in the half-light of their kyber staves, in the heat of the storm. Chirrut with his head turned just to the side, so their mouthes don’t quite meet, glowing crown askew, tipped down against his brow...

It’s Languid now that the edge is off, the desperation, before Chirrut gropes blindly for his pouches and reaches for Baze.

Baze thinks of him with his back turned away, looking to the closed doorway, to the howling wind. That _is_ him, he thinks in a bolt of lucidity when they’re busy breaking down the last vestiges of their honor, when Chirrut already has the oil and his fingers, his quick, clever fingers inside Baze, one hand pumping, the other worrying at himself with glazed eyes and his lower lip pulled in between his teeth.

Chirrut, gazing at the barrier between himself and the storm, wanting to be a part of it.

Chirrut gazing at _him_ and touching himself.

”Quickly,” Baze rasps, because he has also waited, and held back and feeling Chirrut inside him at last is almost more than he can bear. He squeezes Chirrut’s shoulders hard, pushing him harder back into the sheets, trying to push his fingers deeper. “Chirrut.”

Chirrut’s eyes widen a fraction, the hand on his own cock stilling for a moment, gripping.

When he finally enters Baze it’s a relief even as it aches, adjusting. Relief, because he doesn’t have to watch Chirrut want and flex at something that isn’t him anymore, wanting to satisfy, tensing himself because of the way Chirrut’s mouth falls open and he swears under his breath.

”Baze...” he breathes. “Baze, _relax_.”

Baze pushes against him with his full weight, straddling his hips so he sits deep- _deep_ \- and Chirrut swears, a reverent punched-out exhale.

Baze rocks against his hips while the wind blows, pushing Chirrut’s hands over his head, tightly clasped in his like they were still vowing, tightly squeezed like Chirrut’s shut eyes as he gasps and breaks out of the handhold to pull Baze more firmly onto him, squeezing his ass, gripping against him, stilling him at first, then making clear the handhold is so he can _pound_ up into him.

Baze hangs on for dear life.

He’s _glowing_ , Baze thinks as Chirrut hisses his name, hitching breath and clutching at his ass. Gasping, he drops his forehead against Chirrut’s shoulder against sensation, groaning his name back like a responsive litany, feeling him etch himself into him—Places Chirrut And Only Chirrut will ever reach, will ever _touch_ -

It’s happening.

Somehow he thought the stones would fall on his head sooner than the Force would allow him to be one, truly one with Chirrut Îmwe, to feel the heat of him inside of him.

Baze spasms with a cry, gripping Chirrut’s arms to keep from touching himself. It feels like he’ll die if he doesn’t, feels like he’ll die if he does, Chirrut unyielding and thick and _deep_ inside him. 

The same intensity he felt when they rocked against one another on the private practice mat when their courting had finally come into that curious full bloom where it felt like just an extension of their friendship, with kissing, and with lingering touches. 

That memorable spar that devolved into laughing, grinding, and sloppy kissing, wrestling, Chirrut’s body hot under him. Both of them shirtless, covered in bruises from where they’d tried to make purchase with their fingers earlier, before Chirrut had kissed his nose and Baze had _laughed_ , joy startled right out of him, and then there were hands on his ears, a mouth on his, and a swollen lump against him that, when he ground his hip into it, Chirrut had made the most beautiful noise at, snaking his tongue into Baze’s mouth.

A spar. A different spar. And Baze had felt like he was winning, like Chirrut was _letting_ him win. So _good_ with his little moans and whimpers, cloth on cloth, until Chirrut shockingly came right then and there, splaying suddenly and panting under him with wet blooming in the front of his training trousers, eyes dark and blown wide, unseeing, guilt deflating Baze’s erection like a jolt of cold air.

He remembers the moment Chirrut just gazed at him, slack-mouthed and boneless with satisfaction in his ruined pants, eyes dark, so dark, and so close...

Like Baze covering his own mouth, wide-eyed, rigid, silent while Chirrut ducked underneath his robes and put his mouth on him for the first time, whispers against his skin.

_Force, you’ve been holding out on me, Baze Malbus._

Choking down a sob, hunching into it in their public cloister because it felt _so good_ , but also so against what he was meant to stand for as an engaged man, meant for Waiting.

Staring at the dripping water on the edge of the table he’d knocked down in a fluster when Chirrut knelt before him, and lifted the red veil of his guardianship over his head like a marriage shroud. Hot breath against his skin, a head between his legs, shocked and guilty, but not resisting- not _Chirrut_ oh _Chirrut_ -

The blessed heat and suction of Chirrut’s mouth while the temple chanted prayers around them.

( _The Force is with me. And I am with the Force. And I fear nothing, for all is as the Force Wills it-_ )

Baze, biting his fist and coming guiltily, quickly down Chirrut’s throat for the first time. The second time. The third time weeks later with his thighs around Chirrut’s ears, riding his strong, narrow jaw and panting, hands still pressed over his own mouth lest somebody hear and realize their misuse of the meditation cloister-

-Which Baze had gone to to pray for guidance, because the veneer of their friendship was beginning to wear thin, failing to veil Baze’s sudden and keen appreciation that Chirrut was _beautiful_. Beautiful. What was he doing here? With _him_ of all people?

Ironies.

Kissing Chirrut in the middle of the meditation cloister with his hands up and under his fiancé’s robes, fondling Chirrut’s swollen cock while he panted, laughed, dug his fingers into Baze’s neck and Baze felt guilty, but also responsible for Chirrut’s need, needing to know if he could make him slack and molten, and dazedly staring at him like he’d been when he fisted around himself in his bedding when they’d been nothing but friends, like he’d been when he’d been beneath him on the practice mat...lips just resting against the place he’d been bruised the night everything changed, but refusing to bite down, to claim him.

Guilty awareness for the rest of the day, even after he’d washed off, that _this_ was the hand that had touched Chirrut without a vow.

Never again.

Accidents. Falterings. Moments their wills were weak and their desire for one another overwhelmingly strong. There will be nothing more that they don’t mean, have not fully committed to. No more guilt, no more held breath wondering if it could go wrong and their betrothal break, and then they both would be sullied.

_Never again._

His husband is inside of him.

They are Bound. Joined. One in the Force of Others, whispering names to one another.

Thunder rumbles loudly as Chirrut bruises his hips with his fingers, Baze biting his own fist to keep from crying out at the force of the feeling ripping through him. Shockingly fast, shockingly _lush_ with the catch of Chirrut’s cock, the flutter of butterflies in his stomach.

Chirrut’s fingers curl and clench against his back, travel up to grip his shoulders.

” _Baze._ Are you almost done already?” He pants in Baze’s ear.

Baze can’t even formulate how to speak, drags the hand clutching his hip to his cock, Chirrut spread and glowing beneath him like a debauched young storm god, glittering with kyber water and mineral and pollen, tasting sweet and salt and so achingly thick inside of him- at last- _Inside of him-_

He jumps at a close clap of thunder, bewildered and Chirrut laughs, rolls him easily off his perch so Baze gapes with loss, pushed onto his back. Chirrut, looking down at him with the utmost affection as he slides back into the slick of him, where Baze prepared- could not prepare, could not _dream_ of this. Groans brokenly as Chirrut holds open the thick of his thighs, gives him the full view of his cock leaking against his belly, of Chirrut pushing in and out of him, all narrow hips, and chiseled belly, and-

Baze’s breath catches and he reels, staring as Chirrut stuffs into him, and holds there, so Baze spasms inside, unbidden, and leaks against his stomach, panting into his fist and tearing his eyes away.

” _Chirrut..._ ”

Chirrut just laughs, hitching a little deeper into him.

Soon they will not be able to pinpoint the exact instances of their lovemaking. Not guilty things to be held onto and confessed but joyful. Too many to count. But that isn’t how it feels when Chirrut is inside of him. It feels like a revelation. A thing to be declared, to be shouted about, but he can’t, can only whisper his name.

Chirrut is stroking Baze’s cock now, and it’s _heavenly_ , peaking him even higher, still moving inside of him in tandem. His other hand’s lifting the crown off his brow and dropping it onto Baze’s, still laughing so Baze’s overwhelmed senses are filled with the smell of cave jasmine and rainbloom, the sound of wind and rain, the replayed sight of Chirrut filling him over and over and over, working his fingers along him, smiling like it’s all some grand indulgence, then suddenly too much, _too much-_.

Baze twists his head to the side and comes with a gasp, Chirrut’s hands stroking him, fucking into him even as he’s coming, arching up against their bed. _Too fast_ Baze thinks, liquid spattering his chest, a harder spurt hitting him in the chin. He’s choking for breath through gritted teeth so tight they creak, _Too fast_ \- Chirrut still-

Thunder booms outside their hovel as Chirrut works inside of him, and without the haze of orgasm everything is far too much, too _hard_. Baze squeezes his hips with his thighs, gritting his teeth.

Chirrut tries to still, though his body trembles with the effort.

”Let me go.” He whispers. “Baze, let me go.”

Baze loosens his grip and almost sobs when he pulls himself out, damp against the insides of his thighs. His bones feel turned to jelly, shakey and hot.

He pants, stares at his husband, glowing, radiant, having no idea what he must look like for Chirrut to be staring at him like that, with such painful adoration, hard cock still curved up towards his chest, mirroring the blurred streak of red down the line of his stomach.

Chirrut bends over him and drags his mouth down Baze’s trembling belly, sucking the mess off, licking away the spatters of Seed and wiping at his own giddy, laughing mouth with the back of his hand. There’s a draft in the room. A howl of wind. Ominous. Baze can’t focus on it with Chirrut kissing his skin, with his own breath thundering in and out of his chest where Chirrut’s lips rest and take off, and pepper down; Chirrut, kissing his palm, taking his fingers in his mouth, moaning around them, and gazing at him with soft, dark, adoring eyes.

Baze tugs his hand free, pulling him down by the jaw, kissing that wicked, smiling mouth, which is bitter now, tastes of salt, of sweat, of love.

Chirrut groans again, erection bumping against Baze’s hip as he rolls them over, mouth caught hard enough against Baze’s to bruise.

”Bright One,” Baze stammers low and hoarse against his mouth, wanting to pour poetry into it, stroking Chirrut’s short hair, grinning at him like they must have done a thousand times as children, plenty of times after when they were older, noses pressed on either side of one another, breath hot and mingling. “ _Husband,_ ” he breathes instead like it’s something sacred, resting his forehead against Chirrut’s. “My husband.”

There’s a fine mist of wetness from somewhere. He suspects it’s the stones themselves, the gaps between them because of how Chirrut’s eyelids flicker.

Chirrut adjusts his crown on Baze’s forehead. His whisper is lost to a rumble of thunder, a wail of the wind.

”What?” Baze hisses back.

Chirrut just gazes at him, pushing his loose hair back over his shoulders. His throat bobs up and down just once, nearly touching their mouthes. He grazes Baze’s lips with his tongue, drawing back slightly.

Baze breathes out. The crown tips off when he closes that distance and kisses Chirrut. He thinks of him, at fourteen, wholly focused under the blankets, bordering on frustration. The first time he was aware Chirrut had feelings, and the way the sweat glistened on his upper lip while he worked that hand at himself under the sheets, eyes brazen and stony, as if daring Baze to stop him, perhaps pleading with him to understand, to take mercy in language Baze couldn’t understand.

Baze breaks the kiss and manhandles Chirrut onto his back, turning him over after onto his belly. He kisses the divots of his hips set deep in his back, hearing the startled gust of breath as Chirrut doesn’t resist. Baze considers Chirrut’s shoulders, his back, the glorious curve of his ass in the half-light and his fingers against the sheets, high glow of pleasure still fluttering in his belly.

He thinks again of Chirrut’s downy upper lip when they were young, the glow of sweat on his lean, golden body. Pretty. But in an abstract way. Not the same as now, where just looking at Chirrut waiting for him makes his melted heart burn hot, makes his hands reach with the need to touch.

Baze kisses the curve of Chirrut’s flesh, nuzzles in when he tenses. His skin is very soft and clean. There’s very little of the intimate mustiness Baze has come to associate with him as he kneads the separate halves of his ass with his thumbs. He kisses him on the flushed, tight rosebud of his ass, and hears the startled, longing noise his husband makes in response. Leans in to lick, and then to nibble at the tender skin.

It dawns in him that since Chirrut cleaned himself so carefully, he maybe should have shaved for their wedding night. He is one of the temple’s few bearded guardians.

He didn’t shave though. So there’s that. The hesitation. The decision, because they have waited, and Chirrut needs- needs- 

Chirrut doesn’t seem to care if his hungry noises are anything to go off of, delicate skin going pink, then chafing brighter red with beard burn every time Baze surfaces for breath, the little movements of his hips encouraging as Baze eats him out, working him wet and open with his mouth.

There’s mineral dust still glowing on Chirrut’s shoulders. Hot glow of flush on the skin beneath.

He’s humping against the bedding now, like he’s a teenager again, little open-mouthed gasps of breath at the sweeps of Baze’s tongue, the fingers he works in with it.

Chirrut melts, groaning.

”Baze-“

He takes two easily when Baze oils them, curling his fingers, searching the way Chirrut had whispered to him about wanting a year and a half into their engagement, staring at the dead leaves of the great uneti in the garden and praying hard for spring, driven to it. Pleading silently with the Force to bring rain.

Chirrut’s hand on his cock, his mouth on his ear, whispering desperately of all the things he’d do to Baze once they were married while they sat in the cold beneath the uneti tree with their hands in each other’s robes. Both of them ready and straining to hold back, _longing_ for one another as Baze had never longed for anyone. Anything. As he hadn’t known he _could_ long.

It was Chirrut who had taught him this use for a mouth, whispering of what could follow when Baze had begged him to go no further, fearful of the public place, and of how greatly his desire had molded him to Chirrut’s desires, made him pliant and responsive to such displays where before he would never- 

He’d been scared of how much he ached and wanted to be filled, how _close_ it had been, settling for Chirrut’s filthy parody of kissing, Chirrut’s hand on his cock, while Baze’s nose pressed like his elbows into the soil, his teeth gritted tight against feeling, wondering if spring waited, if his will would cave and he’d let Chirrut have him fully even before their vows, in the cold before the moist air from the hot sea beneath Jedha’s crust exhaled and sent the great clouds, the great rains...

He’s glad he didn’t give in and let Chirrut finger him in the gardens. Relieved he didn’t. Suspects that it’s timing rather than holiness which meant he didn’t.

His fingers fill Chirrut now, Chirrut, who’s breathing heavily, facedown in the sheets, clenching around three of Baze’s slick digits.

There’s wet pooling beneath him, eyes feverishly shut.

”Baze!” He whispers, harsh against the storm rumble.

Baze is stroking himself, sore, aching, half-urging the slowness of his cock, trying to feed it in anyway, instead of the fingers, because Chirrut’s moaning, glowing like the kyber he’s painted with against the sheets.

He makes a noise, breath hitching

”Mm. You’re- squashing me.”

Baze shifts, and Chirrut quickly traps him with an elbow in his hair, unwittingly yanking, laughing.

”No. No. I _like_ it.”

Baze settles his full weight onto him like a stone, finally half-hard, faltering but pushing against the widened rim of Chirrut’s ass, so Chirrut’s breath gusts out. 

Baze thinks of how he wanted to climb onto him, to wrestle his hands away and tell him to stop when he caught him that once when they were boys, trying to make sense of his confusion, of his reaction to the smell of unwashed teenager and the smell of Chirrut’s sex. And like that he’s fully hard, catches, and pushes in. Chirrut’s tight and warm and wet and feels so sweet wrapped around him it’s dizzying, heavier than Chirrut’s gasp.

It feels right to him, too. Like if the storm comes in at them it’ll hit Baze first, and Chirrut will be safe. And warm. And _full_. Chirrut squirms. Baze feels himself slide in a little deeper.

Chirrut’s laughing again, groaning, giddy. Finally. _Finally_ -

”Move, Baze,” Chirrut whispers, curling a hand over his. “ _Please Move._ I’ve waited all my life.”

Baze thinks of him with his hand under him, when they were young, and Chirrut’s face, turned up to him.

”Like this?”

”Force, Baze, _please_ -!” 

His hips chase Baze’s tentative motion, grinding the front of him into the sheets. He ripples around him so Baze almost lets go then and there, snaps his hips forward. Chirrut shudders.

He’s never heard him like this. Praising him under his breath with every groan, every motion, babbling, fingers tangled in Baze’s long hair, which is spread over them both like a raiment, rocking with his motion, rising onto his knees in a wide squat, cheek still pressed into the bedding.

Baze leans more of his weight into him and Chirrut groans in response.

Chirrut is gripping the sheets, arching beneath him with his lip in his teeth, Savage, and beautiful, and familiar, and unfamiliar, utterly invested in Baze’s ability to move against some sweet, secret place in him. Noises that belong to some animal and not to his husband, tight and warm around him, greedy.

Baze doesn’t trust himself not to give in to the sensation, trying to reach for the force instead, that calm, centered place of balance, of meditation. Neither dark nor light. That twilight place of a million pathways, whispering like kyber caverns in the glittering darkness. His mind drifts there, perhaps helped by what he’s consumed during his marriage ceremony, heightened by rainbloom and kyber water. The place he Knows from dreams when he tries to tamp down on the restless thing in him that screams he should be among the stars, while his heart protests back that Jedha is his home. Chirrut is his home. Chirrut-

Baze comes back to on a particularly close snap of thunder, disoriented.

Chirrut’s knees are collapsed, splayed flat and drooling into the pillows, eyes rolled back, shuddering at Baze’s cock pulsing deep inside him. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Chirrut’s gone limp, smells of sweat, clean and high, like the rain smell whistling into their temporary home, undaunted by Baze coming deep inside him, which feels less like pleasure and more like a jolt of peace and clarity, a wash of warmth. Baze groans, waits a moment for the haze of pleasure to dim.

He pulls out slowly, his aches catching up with him, thumbing the mess around his entrance.

He turns Chirrut over and Chirrut makes a very little noise, soft little flutters of his breathing. There’s wet beneath him, his erection half-soft from coming. How long ago did he come? How did Baze miss it? How long did his body, lost to the Force, push into Chirrut’s past pleasure?

The clarity and peace vanishes, replaced by anger. His marriage, and the Force didn’t let him feel it.

Baze touches Chirrut’s cheek.

”Chirrut,” He whispers, “ _Chirrut!_ ”

Chirrut groans.

”Did I hurt you?”

His hands are on Chirrut’s cheeks, cursing his shortsightedness, his foolishness at going into a trance while in the middle of something so important. His pride. Wanting to be good. Not wanting to finish too quickly and leave Chirrut wanting-

He didn’t _think_ he would get lost to the Force so easily. He’s disoriented. Slightly dizzy.

Chirrut shoves at his head with a groan.

”That. Was _worth_ those two years.” He mutters, voice gone hoarse. “Force, you’re huge everywhere. How did such an adorable shy child turn into _this_?”

Baze sighs and hits him with a pillow.

Chirrut just giggles, reaches to try to pull Baze’s hair out from under him, then reaches for Baze himself, kissing him, nipping with his teeth and laughing. His hand finds an ear. Which feels like a secret between them. Only Chirrut knows his ears are huge.

”I’m definitely keeping you all for myself,” He pauses, stroking Baze’s hot ear with a thumb. “Do you always pray when you pleasure a man, Baze Malbus?”

Baze doesn’t answer immediately.

”...What?”

Chirrut knows just as well as he does that there have been no other men. That his first kiss was at a party, and from a woman, as a dare, stirring nothing in him.

”You were whispering in my ear the entire time. The litany of unity and the twenty-third song in that voice of yours.”

Baze doesn’t look at him.

”...I didn’t want to leave you wanting.”

”So you prayed all through it?” Chirrut laughs and squeezes his hand. “The temple must be littered with people who cannot hear you at prayers any longer.”

”There are no others,” Baze corrects firmly, squeezing Chirrut’s hand once to get him to look at him. “Only you.”

Chirrut visibly falters. He stares at their hands, which were bound together hours before.

Baze falters himself, noticing a fresh damp patch under their door, where water must have rushed and then sunk into the ground.

Chirrut recognizes his distraction and sighs. 

”It’s fine. Only Rain. This is high ground.”

Baze worries for the low parts of the city.

Chirrut pulls his jaw into his hands, kissing him again, probably following the shape of his thoughts and trying to pull him from them. He tugs Baze’s lip with his teeth to get his attention, and grins at him.

”Water. In the red earth jug under the bed.” He smiles, toying the rim of Baze’s ear with his thumb. “The one that looks like you. Bring it to me.”

Baze rolls his eyes but obeys, pulling up the wide-handled jug, the attached little tin cup.

Chirrut takes and drinks deep, refills it twice before sighing. His dark eyes sparkle, offering Baze the cup.

The water sparkles too on Baze’s tongue. Slightly bitter. Kyber water.

”Drink,” Chirrut whispers, dark eyes glittering. “Meditate with me.”

Baze makes a face, downs two cups himself, setting the jug back down, bare knees to knees, fingers entwined. He’s sore, when he puts his forehead against Chirrut’s. Exhausted.

They’re supposed to be meditating on the Force, on life, praying their gratitude, but Baze notices Chirrut’s eyes are open, gazing too-close at him so his eyes look like a single eye, so his smile is out of focus.

Baze rallies his thoughts, lists off to the Force his gratitude, his prayers for the city, for their safety, blessings on the others who have shared the day of rain with them, long life, and the Force’s mercy to them.

Chirrut’s lips are gentle on his, a surprise. Interruption. Soft. The kyber water is singing in his veins because he glows all the brighter, luminous in the Force, outside of it, luminous to the eye when he pulls away and looks at Baze.

Baze questions him with a look.

”I will sleep in your arms tonight. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” Chirrut whispers, hands cupping his ears like they are precious things. He’s beaming at him again, like he can drink him with his eyes.

Baze thinks he knows where this is going.

”Fourteen?”

Chirrut laughs.

”Do you remember when we were children and I had those nightmares and I would sneak into your bed?”

Baze blinks.

He does, vaguely. Protective. He also Remembers more than one elbow and knee during the night. Is surprised to have forgotten. He and Chirrut went everywhere together as Children. Before Baze got even quieter, and moody, and began to long for other boys and Chirrut outgrew him and got _appreciated_...

”When did the Masters talk to you? About becoming a man?” Chirrut asks.

Baze doesn’t remember. It doesn’t seem to matter because Chirrut continues over his confused pause.

”I was eleven when they told me to stop crawling into bed with you. And when I woke up and knew I couldn’t go to you it was the loneliest I have ever been in my life.”

He looks at him hard while Baze stares.

”I cried for you, Baze Malbus.”

Baze touches his elbows, wordless, wants to hold him. Sits instead with a great lump in his throat. Chirrut laughs at what must be the stricken expression on his face, heart aching for his husband at eleven. Chirrut, who never outgrew him.

”I have always wanted to be with you. You were only feet away. I could hear you snoring-“

”I don’t snore,” Baze mutters. Chirrut ignores him.

”-And I wasn’t allowed. It used to make me so angry. That we were growing up and that meant I couldn’t be with you anymore.”

Baze squeezes his arm, voice rough when he finally manages to word what his heart is screaming.

”...You are always with me.”

”You know what I mean.”

”Often, yes.”

That gets Chirrut to stop with a grin, knocking his forehead against Baze’s. He touches Baze’s face, drags the hand down his neck, his chest. His grin fades.

”Baze Malbus, I want to _kiss_ you. I want to sleep beside you and wake in your arms. I want to-“

Baze kisses him before he can get any more overwhelming, before his ears can burn hotter. He pulls back after a moment.

”You don’t have to ask.” Baze mumbles. Meaning it. Meaning- something large. Something as huge as Chirrut’s quiet devotion. He thinks he could do anything-

Realizes he’s already Chirrut’s.

”I go where you go.” He says slowly.

Chirrut laughs.

”I am intrigued but certain that is anatomically impossible.”

Baze shoves him.

Chirrut blinks in the kyber light, a gust of wet air whistling through the cracks as he pulls Baze down with him, face to face.

His skin is warm under Baze’s skimming fingers, his mouth soft and smiling.

It’s easy, so easy with kyber water in his veins, relaxing him, and postcoital sleepiness, with Chirrut’s smooth skin, and his fingers squeezing the softness of Baze’s sides. Kissing lazily again. Touching while wind howls around them. Chirrut’s hand stroking his bruised ass and Baze’s mouth on Chirrut’s nipples, no urgency, but great feeling nonetheless. They’ve both come, Baze thinks sadly, surprised when Chirrut groans nonetheless, arching into the fondling, slick when Baze touches the swollen line of his perineum, gazing at his half-slack mouth and glazed dark eyes.

He’s overwhelmed by love for him. Slow and sweet, kissing Chirrut’s smeared, painted belly, licking his peaked, aching nipples and stroking the space behind so Chirrut sighs and his eyelids flutter.

”Go to sleep,” Baze whispers. “I will be here.”

” _Baze_ ,” Chirrut sighs, rolling his eyes, glowing and radiant against the soiled sheets. “Like I could _sleep_ through any of this.” He melts into his touch though, burying a hand in Baze’s hair when he kisses his chest some more.

”I will be here.” Baze whispers against his heart.

Chirrut groans, pushing at his hair where it’s tickling him. “ _Force_ , that’s not the point-“ he cuts off with a hitch of breath, touches Baze’s face. “Let me look at you. Baze- let me look at you.” His eyes rake down Baze’s body.

He’s perking, plumping again while Baze watches, rolling a thumb around the damp of his entrance. He shifts, nods half under his lashes when Baze questions with a look, and pushes his fingers slowly back into the slick mess.

Chirrut crooks his legs open with a pleased noise, letting him push deeper.

Baze rubs against something firmer inside of him, something swollen, and Chirrut makes a high noise.

”Husband-“ He whispers, fingers closing around Baze’s ears. “Ah- _Husband_ \- Gently-“

His breathing hitches, goes harsh even with Baze’s gentleness. To Baze’s surprise, there’s wet on Chirrut’s cheeks.

”You’re so beautiful,” Chirrut gasps. “Ai-! I never tell you how beautiful you are, Baze-“

Baze, embarrassed, stills the babble with his mouth again and drops the fallen crown back over his eyes. It’s kyber water talking, fizzing pleasure in Chirrut’s veins. On his cheekbones, rubbed into his bare skin.

”More-“ Chirrut whispers, mouth gaping. “I need more. Baze, I’m-“ he whimpers. “I’ll go mad-“

Baze kisses him, and Chirrut crooks a leg over his shoulder, gasping.

”Baze, Please-“

Baze takes out his fingers to oil them. Chirrut gropes blindly at the bed.

”The Green vial. Green- beloved. _Please_.”

He doesn’t make it to finishing the request, shuddering around Baze’s fingers. His untouched cock jumps, trembles.

”I wanted to be with you too.” Baze mumbles into his ear. It doesn’t seem like something he should say aloud. An admittance. 

Chirrut groans.

To sit at Chirrut’s side. Meditate with him. To make his tea for him day by day, and fan him on the warm ones. To do Zama Shiwo step by step, the two of them working the invisible force between them like a dance. To wrap his constantly injured hands and salve his bruises. To see the things which made Chirrut flutter with such happiness and light and joy. To laugh all the harder when some poor sentient gazed too long at Chirrut’s low-hanging tunics and the hot gold of his pendant dragging the eye to his chest, his chiseled belly and narrow waist because Chirrut was his. Truly only his, and there was no doubt-

”Baze-“ Chirrut gasps, nearly in tears from his gentleness, kneading against the overly tender point inside him.

Baze kisses his forehead, brother blessing brother.

A nagging thought occurs to him.

His head lifts off Chirrut’s chest.

”Alright?”

Something hits the side of their dwelling, dragged by the wind and Baze jumps. Chirrut jolts too, then laughs, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes, tugging Baze’s forehead down to his.

”Alright. Yes. But I can’t _finish_ like this, Husband,” he spells out, a tinge of exasperation in the heat of his words, in his smile, “You have to turn me over, or touch me, unless you mean to torment me, and you’ve tormented me so long already-“

”I never tormented you.” Baze grumbles, breathing in Chirrut’s sigh.

”Your _existence_ is torment.”

”Must be difficult for you.” Baze grumbles.

”Of course you’re like this even in bed,” Chirrut rolls his eyes, squirming slightly. “ _Green_ vial.”

Baze grunts. Doesn’t move.

”It’s a wedding present from Anjou Wee- Don’t look at me like that.”

”You can do this without Anjou Wee.” Baze mutters.

Chirrut’s eyes widen, startled, then narrow, even with flushed cheeks and parted lips, a little smile curling his lips.

”Jealousy does not become you, Dear One.”

”You knew her before we were promised to one another.”

Chirrut groans, frustrated.

”Force, I was one with _many_ people before I was promised to you, Baze. It was just something to _do_ -“ he cuts off with a noise. “ _Baze_!”

Baze doesn’t answer. Doesn’t speed up his steady curling into Chirrut’s body.

”I didn’t think you even _liked_ humans.” Chirrut grumbles.

Baze pauses. Laughs despite himself.

” _What?_ ”

”Well there was Torvel-“ he laughs when Baze looks away. “ _Yes_. Baze, _everyone_ knew about the torch you held for Torvel. Force, the way you would hide your face behind your book and _stare_ at his markings? Tillik had to convince him you didn’t want to _fight_ when you were thirteen.”

Baze makes a noise.

”That was years ago,” he mumbles. He’s trying to concentrate. To remember how to touch and please.

He’s still afraid to ask if Chirrut wanted to scream at him for it. He speaks of it calmly now, but the guilt trills in Baze’s stomach.

”Oh no, it’s fine. Torvel has an ass you can balance a teacup on- why did you stop?”

Baze can’t keep touching his husband while Chirrut’s embarrassing him with the past.

He puts his face in one hand, sighing.

”Not when we were _thirteen_.” Baze mumbles a little more hotly. He wasn’t thinking like that when he was twelve and first taken with Torvel. When he was twelve he went red in the face just thinking about holding the Zabrak’s hand, got anxious just thinking of how much his tattoos had to hurt and wanting to stop whoever’d hurt him so.

He feels more than a little foolish for it in hindsight. Doesn’t want to think too closely about Chirrut balancing things on him, and how close they might have gotten. If there was a chance-

Chirrut laughs, lounging back on his elbows. He props himself a little higher in the bed.

He mutters something under his breath that reads suspiciously like _You’re one to talk._ on his lips.

”What?”

Chirrut ignores him, listing off, “There was that lasat you always used to spend a lot of time with when you were building your blaster- _no don’t you moan at me, Baze Malbus._ You know the one! The one who was too old for you!”

”Wasn’t.” Baze mutters. Lasat lived as long as wookies, some of them. Thirty was still well within the range of their puberty. More than comparable to sixteen.

”He was bug-eyed and _smelled_.” Chirrut counters, grinning mischief at him. He’s trying to crook his legs open to make himself look inviting.

Baze’s ears burn, sneaking him glances.

He does look inviting.

Alaspeth’s brindled gray fur had looked soft, though, and his limping lope had been graceful. And he’d had such large, careful hands when he’d worked on lightbows together with Baze, with toes just as capable as his fingers. Faintly snuffling when he breathed because of his shortened nose. Lavender patterns of stripes on his shoulders so you’d almost miss it unless you were close-

”Deny it,” Chirrut challenges.

”He was kind to me.” Baze mutters back, Because there’s no argument that Lasat have a very strong odor to most sentients. 

It had seemed significant not to find it unpleasant. Like the ripe smell of boys sharing a room after a hot day sparring and something faintly animal underneath. It called to mind good things for Baze. And he’d moved very carefully for such a large person. Baze doesn’t want to admit he’d had dreams about his hands and his very capable feet. Dreams he’d kept to himself.

”You would never have beaten him in combat.” Chirrut warns, entirely too gleeful. “Lasat won’t marry you unless you beat them.”

Baze makes an indifferent noise.

It might have been worth it to try.

He’d had more than one private fantasy about a tumble in the dry temple grasses with Alaspeth when he’d been a teenager.

”And the males have barbed penises.” Chirrut adds, he raises his eyebrows, “big ones, though, so there is that.”

”There are ways,” Baze mutters. He’s going for lofty. Probably just comes out surly.

”I know how I know that, but how do you?” Chirrut counters.

Baze glares at him.

His husband just grins.

He can’t believe Chirrut kept such close track of his crushes throughout the many years.

” _And_ there was Baelfela’ss from the tea shop-“ Chirrut counts off on another finger. 

”He’s a _Lizard_ ,” Baze can’t help blurting, laughing now, watching the smile slip right off his husband’s face, growing quickly impatient since his lounging isn’t having the desired effect.

”So? You’d hang around for _hours_ talking teas with him.” Chirrut is petulant in an instant, sulking at being laughed at.

”Because it was interesting!”

”Because you wanted to be his _heat rock._ ” 

Baze can’t help it. He laughs again.

”No.”

”You would like me better covered in scales. I know this. Admit it.”

Baze laughs harder.

” _No_.”

Chirrut’s grinning again now too.

”Seven feet tall, rippling with muscle, both heads of my reptile girth feeding into you-“

Baze flicks his damp asshole with a forefinger.

Chirrut makes an offended gasp that’s half-outrage.

” _You_ could have married a nice dancing girl,” Baze retorts.

” _That’s_ speciesist,” Chirrut sniffs, tossing his head.

Baze laughs. Anyone who hadn’t just been accused of not liking humans at all would be offended.

”A nice Twi’lek with Thick Lekku.” He mutters.

”They _are_ very thick,” Chirrut muses so it’s Baze’s turn to shoot him a disapproving look. Chirrut tangles a hand against his scalp, wrapping a fistful of dark hair, pulling him closer in bed. He smiles up at Baze, considering him with visible pleasure. “ _You’re_ thicker though.”

Baze has to look away, fighting the urge to suck in his gut. He makes a warning noise.

Chirrut turns his chin towards him. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, just gazing at Baze, stroking his unmanageable hair.

Baze stares at his bare shoulder, the stretch lines from where Chirrut’s strength outstripped his skin, leaving tiny feathers of pale scarring. He’s free to trace them with his fingers if he wants. Waits, faltering on the urge even now, even here, naked, with Chirrut’s thumb tracing the rim of his ear.

”I want to see you grow old.” Chirrut says finally, “You can get fat and go bald, and you will still be the one who Glows with the favor of the Force. You will still be the most devoted guardian. My Husband who I covered with my veil and shared my cup with. I cannot wait to hold you and to feel you change in my arms.”

”Shut up,” Baze mutters, very red in the ears. His face burns. They’re not even in their mid-twenties. He doesn’t want Chirrut thinking like that.

Chirrut grips him tight by those same ears, tight enough to hurt, nose to nose.

”I know what you mean. Our first Love is the Force. We are Guardians.”

”Yes.” Baze breathes out, still not meeting his eyes.

”But you are one with the Force, Baze Malbus. The Force is with me.” Chirrut breathes into his mouth in a sigh of exhale. “And I am one with the Force.”

Baze shuts his eyes.

He can feel the earnestness with which Chirrut is trying to impart whatever great feeling has seized him this time.

”You understand...” Chirrut breathes, “you understand, don’t you, dear one?”

Baze kisses him, holds him by the forearms, thumbs stroking the tender inner flesh of Chirrut’s elbows so he doesn’t have to answer, doesn’t have to confess that some depth of Chirrut’s feelings have gone beyond him, that he just wants to love him without having to wrap it up in all the religious talk and theory and dry dead dogma Baze lives in day by day and breathes in in the old texts of the library.

He has _mastered_ Dogma.

 _Chirrut_ is something he will never Master. More complex than the Force. More joyful. More than his equal. A life’s work to try to understand and parse new, beautiful layers of complexity and contradiction in. Chirrut is alive as the Force is alive, but also _here_ , unpinned down by words and the theories of dead men who must be respected and learned by rote. And he loves him.

Loves him.

More deeply, he is starting to suspect in his fearful, cautious heart, than he has ever loved the Force, which does not respond to Baze’s love and Devotion like it does for a Jedi, like it does for any number of its other lovers and devotees.

Chirrut groans into his mouth and pulls him down, guiding Baze’s hands back to his need, shuddering at his own sensitivity. He’s gritting his teeth against Baze’s mouth even as he guides his hand to his cock.

His voice breaks, pulling away from Baze’s lips, encouraging little grunts as Baze works both hands, and Chirrut tangles his fingers in Baze’s hair.

There’s no more talk of Others or of the Force.

Baze focuses instead on what he can remember of the texts he studied for this night, the hours. On Chirrut’s body and his responses, listening to his heartbeat quicken.

Baze’s wrist is starting to hurt from rubbing against that firm little place deep inside Chirrut, working his foreskin back and forth across his head when he turns his mouth back to his swollen nipple.

That seems to break the plateau and send Chirrut into a sudden peak.

”Ah- Baze! My Baze!” Chirrut chokes out as he clenches around his fingers. Baze speeds up, bites. Gently.

Chirrut comes with a cry of his name, pulling his hair.

The spurt is much less impressive, though he comes a lot, surprising Baze, groaning “no, don’t stop- don’t-“ He keens, clenching around his fingers. “ _Ah!_ ”

He goes rigid, and then goes still.

Baze stills too, listening to the wind and Chirrut’s panting.

He sighs and flops down into the rumpled bedding next to him.

Chirrut starts to laugh, carding fingers through his hair.

”What are _you_ so tired for?”

Baze just grunts. Everything has tired him. The anxiety of marriage, the worry of the storm, the lovemaking. All of it. He’s tired. Not that Chirrut would even believe it.

Chirrut smiles, smoothing his hair, looking at him. He grimaces for a moment while Baze removes his fingers, then goes back to smiling, gazing, smiling some more.

”...I like that you listened to me.” He says after a long pause.

”You said not to stop.”

”Yes.” 

Baze makes an incoherent noise, shrugging his shoulders to say _so what’s the problem?_

Chirrut keeps stroking his hair.

”You listened.”

Baze turns his head to fix him with one eye.

Listening to your husband is a really low bar if that’s where it’s set.

”...that one wasn’t as good.” He mumbles.

”That-?” Chirrut catches up in an instant and laughs, “Oh no that was _definitely_ Good.”

Baze makes a noise.

”What?”

Baze doesn’t answer, planting his face back down in the bedding. He feels Chirrut shift next to him, and hears his breathy laughter in his ear, fingers stroking his hair.

”Are you _doubting_ me?”

Baze just makes a hidden face into the bedding. Chirrut cuddles a little closer to him, curling an arm around his back, chin perched on his shoulder.

” _You_ ,” He whispers, “went studying in the sutras, didn’t you?”

Baze doesn’t answer and doesn’t look up while Chirrut chuckles and rubs his shoulders.

”You looked so _serious_. Like you were trying to master a move.” He laughs, “Did you compromise your purity to pleasure me, Baze Malbus?”

”Shut up,” Baze is muffled against the pillow. He rears with a noise when Chirrut bites his ear hard, limbs caught, pressed back down into the mattress on his belly.

His cock won’t get hard again but his body is very very aware of how warm Chirrut’s bare skin is, pressed against his back.

”You’re wonderful, Baze Malbus. The Force of Others is strong with you to have given you such a tender heart. And now,” he’s grinning. Baze can hear it in his breathing when he tries to free himself and Chirrut holds him fast. “Now you are doomed to hearing me praise it for the rest of our lives.”

”Let me go and you will _feel_ my Force.” Baze growls.

Chirrut just laughs, sounding delighted.

”I just did.” He pauses with a hint of interest, “Are you ready again already? Do my words have such an effect on you?”

Baze growls and breaks free with a snap of strength, trying to reverse the grapple. Chirrut keeps laughing, slapping at his ears with stinging but not full-forced little blows. Playing with him. Teasing one another with their strength. Chirrut in particular seems delighted to be manhandled.

Baze surges at him, catching his mouth with his, and Chirrut gives a surprised groan, reaching for him, catching at his hair.

”Mm. You don’t _feel_ ready.”

”Chirrut, _shut up_ ,” Baze growls.

Chirrut _mm_ s into his mouth again. “I have it on authority-“ he’s breathlessly cut off by a kiss, “from the masters that _this_ ,” his chin tilts up as Baze mouths at his throat, “can lead to debauchery and excess.”

Baze snorts against his ear.

”I hope you’re prepared to take responsibility for me if this is ever to continue,” Chirrut breathes into his ear.

He’s grinning when Baze breaks away, then seems to realize with a moment of startling that he’s used a line. A line he’s probably used on others. A _joke_ he’s probably used on others.

A bolt of pure panicked chagrin flushes his cheeks. He’s tired, Baze recognizes suddenly. Wasn’t thinking.

Baze puts an end to it, kissing his cheek.

Sorry.” He breathes slowly, trying to come up with a response. “I am already married to the love of my life.” Baze murmurs back. He tries to put the warmth he feels in his smile.

Chirrut’s lips part in a slow exhale.

He sighs into the heel of his hand, not quite looking at him.

Baze kisses his temple. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Chirrut embarrassed before.

”...sorry,” He whispers. “That was-“

”Habit,” Baze finishes.

Yes. He knows.

Chirrut sighs. He doesn’t apologize again.

”I’m going to have to come up with all new jokes.” He murmurs, staring at the ceiling in dismay.

”Jokes?” Baze rumbles. “You?”

Chirrut has his mouth half-open to explain himself before he sees Baze’s forcibly stern expression and laughs instead, punching at the side of his ribs.

And his shoulders relax- _good_

”You’re not going to kick me out into the freezing rain are you?”

Baze shakes his head, and presses a kiss to Chirrut’s fingers.

He would have to follow him. And then they would both be sick.

He kisses the lines of scarring and growth on Chirrut’s shoulders.

_I take responsibility for you._

Chirrut squints, raises his chin with a sudden thought.

”...That isn’t making you interested is it?”

Baze snorts and shoves his forehead back into the blankets.

”Just checking,” Chirrut says, muffled but starting to slowly smile again. He fixes his eyes back on Baze’s face, pets at his hair absently beside him on the bed. “Are you hungry?”

Baze scoffs.

Really?

”I will warn you, this is likely your first and last chance for breakfast in bed, because I am a terrible cook.”

”I know,” Baze points out, because Chirrut has clearly forgotten that he tried to rope Baze into making bread with him when he was nine and Baze was ten.

Chirrut pauses, smiles.

He traces a finger around the side of his middle, as though testing the give.

”The rainbloom is yours. That and the chav.”

Baze grimaces.

”No.”

”I like what it does to you.” Chirrut murmurs.

” _No_.”

Chirrut sighs and waves a hand.

”I have decided the ointment is going on you too. You who would not use it on me, my unmerciful husband. And the Wand-“

Baze sighs and pushes a pillow over his head.

”You need to _sleep_.” He says gently.

Chirrut sighs, relents, pushing the pillow off his head. His fingers trace circles on Baze’s arm.

”I may have been...a bit excited to be married to the handsomest guardian on Jedha.”

Baze huffs out his air in a rude sound, shocked to laughter by such an outrageous lie.

”And thinking about...this.” He waves a hand around.

Baze doesn’t meet his eye.

”There may have been some indulgences, some...imaginings of a certain handsome man taking me-“

”Alright,” Baze mutters, rolling his eyes and flopping himself down on the bed, “Enough.”

Chirrut sighs.

”If I said I wanted you to fuck me to sleep, what would you say?”

Baze scoffs and rolls over, taking a pillow and tucking it behind his head.

” _Good Luck._ ”

Chirrut makes a noise of frustration.

Baze doesn’t even open his eyes, patting the space next to him in the bed. He’s tugging the blanket out from under him with the other hand, shifting to get comfortable.

He feels the bed sink and Chirrut flops next to him in a huff.

”Say, Chirrut, what did you do during the storm, Chirrut? I bet that big brute roughed you up plenty, didn’t he, Chirrut?” Chirrut mocks next to him. “And I’ll have to say, no, actually, he _went straight to sleep-_ ”

Baze snaps him to him with a hard squeeze, pulling the blanket over them both.

Chirrut tenses for a moment, then Baze feels him settle, slowly coiling an arm around his waist.

His knee digs between Baze’s thighs, shifting to get comfortable.

He’s quiet for a long moment before he murmurs, “You got so...big...” sliding his hand along Baze’s bare chest, his filled-out ribs.

Baze shrugs, still not opening his eyes.

Chirrut pets a hand across the side of his chest, down his belly. His ear tilts against Baze’s chest, a little noise, a little catch in his breathing.

Baze should have turned off the lights. Too late now, he reflects.

”You _sound_ the same though. Deeper.” Chirrut whispers.

He squeezes Baze once with both arms and legs. The wind wails around them. Baze adjusts under him so the weight is more comfortable, propping his pillow under his neck. Chirrut is heavier too, he thinks. Soft, and heavy, and warm.

His breathing is going softer, relaxed against Baze, Baze’s fingers slowly stroking the neat cap of his hair.

”Thirty minutes,” Chirrut grumbles. “And then we get back to all the things we should have been doing for two years now. Things you can’t learn from scrolls.”

Baze scoffs.

”I’m serious. If you fall asleep, Baze Malbus, you forfeit yourself to my touch. And I will wake you however I see fit.”

Baze smirks at him.

He isn’t afraid. Not of anything Chirrut could do to him with his hands. He’s already decided.

”That is every day,” Baze replies, dry as he can.

Chirrut ignores him, pulling the blanket over his head.

Baze listens to the rain for a long while, peppering the side of their shelter in sheets and waves, the wind dragging something outside.

.

He can’t bring himself to be quite so worried, not with the weight of a man against his skin.

He waits a little longer, then picks the blanket out of Chirrut’s unresisting fingers, and studies the smeared paint of his cheekbone, his open mouth, the curled, callused hand resting against his chest. He cradles the back of his head one-handed, stroking his hair.

He can feel the start of a little trickle of drool against Chirrut’s lips. A detail he’s forgotten for a good ten years.

He can’t bring himself to be annoyed about it.

Baze shuts his eyes, and rests in the eye of the storm.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has Star Wars-typical normalized Xeno-attraction for non-Imperial characters. In Baze’s case this is same gender-identified attraction and in Chirrut’s case is probably pan or any-and-all-gender inclusive if anyone cares. 
> 
> There are also some mentions of teenaged masturbation/implied carousing Baze interprets as sheer dickishness but turn out to be rather pointed because Chirrut is pining. 
> 
> Some internalized purity stuff for Baze, too.
> 
> Eventual...intimate dynamic features an inexperienced but determined Baze and an experienced but deeply charmed Chirrut if that’s any consolation. Which is to say Baze’s concerns about purity are ultimately unfounded and traditionalist and he doesn’t look down on Chirrut for not having the same views or the same life choices.
> 
> The hoped for effect should be a fairly healthy one but with acknowledged philosophical differences.
> 
> On that note? Some hopefully tasteful mentions of plugging. Chirrut is not in favor. Baze continues to be a traditionalist.
> 
> If these or anything else merit particular tag warnings in your view, drop me a line and I’ll gladly alter them accordingly.
> 
> —-
> 
> You can follow me on Tumblr at “EgregiousDerp”, or just drop me a line for any reason! My askbox is always open, but so are my PMs if that’s easier for you. :D


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